


thin ice

by earliegrey



Series: light 'em up (and watch it all burn) [3]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M, gangsta!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 07:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3841750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earliegrey/pseuds/earliegrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[gangsta!AU; [the world beneath our feet]</p><p>When Aomine first saw him, he was huddled near the garden wall, thin arms wrapped around his sword and head lowered.</p><p>Story of Aomine and Kagami's first meeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	thin ice

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, Earlie here again~ Argh, I've been busier and busier so it's hard to sit down and write something coherent. But anyways, this is the story of Aomine and Kagami’s first meeting. There can be a lot more drabbles snuck in between since this does occur over the span of five months, but I decided to just hash out the main things and string them together.
> 
> They’re supposed to be nine year olds, but it feels like they’re a little older, but yea, please read with a grain of salt.
> 
> Please excuse any grammar errors and typos, and please enjoy!
> 
> Warning: a little bit of angst, child abuse, etc.

When Aomine first saw him, he was huddled near the garden wall, thin arms wrapped around his sword and head lowered; he was playing with a metal spoon and half-eaten porridge in a cracked bowl, spilling it onto the grass and watching it sink through the ground.

 _Disgusting, don’t get too close to him_ , he heard someone pass by and say, then the man spits, at the boy with the dusky, red hair.

Aomine grimaced for him, would have liked to go and kick the man in the shins or between his legs, but his mom has a grip on his arm, so he only hoped that the other kid would do it instead.

He didn’t react, maybe flinched a bit and stared straight at his bowl, but he didn’t move.

—

Mom folds two crisp notes and slides them safely into Aomine’s pockets for him and then decides to tuck in his hanging shirt tail as well. She shoos him off in midmorning, and on his trip to the supermarket, swinging around the empty canvas bag he was given for groceries.

High, gritty beige walls stretch down the path he walks; trash bags and stray cans litter the corners with the occasional shrubbery, unkempt weeds, and withering flowers.

He hums (off-key) about today’s grocery list: white bread, two cans of black beans, and a dried sausage link. Aomine turns the corner, thinking about the stew that mom will cook for dinner.

“Get the fuck out of here!”

Aomine jumps, eyes widening just as the same boy, same one from last week, is thrown past him and then crashes into a set of bins. The thin metal dents under his weight as lids roll onto the floor, resonating in softening clacks.

“Don’t come here again or I’ll fucking kill you—”

A loose paper bag is hurled at him afterwards and Aomine hears it tearing in the air, apples and canned meat tumbling to join the spilled trash around him.

“Hey–!” Aomine starts, turning back to glare at the man, but then the door is already slammed, glass window rattling and bell jingling.

The  _open_  sign rocks with the residue momentum, and the wooden plank with etched in store hours falls off soon after that. “Asshole,” he mumbles for a second before he turns his attention to the boy.

Aomine runs to him, careful not to trip over the lids and strewn groceries, “Hey, you okay?”

The answer is obvious—he’s not. Especially since there’s a waterfall of blood flowing from his nostrils.

Aomine just watches him raise a hand to his nose and rub at it, marveling as it smears on his fingers fluidly. Aomine’s also caught by the same spell, staring at the red with something like morbid fascination.

Then it hits him—he should do something.

He overturns his pockets for a napkin or handkerchief, but finds a crumpled tissue instead and flattens it out.

“Here, I have this.”

There’s a pause, a beat, before the other kid raises his red eyes at him, curtained and hidden behind his bangs. Aomine sees a flicker of emotion in them and then—blank.

Aomine blinks twice, and thrusts the tissue at him again. “ _Here_.”

It takes a while but the kid slowly reaches for the tissue, watching the corners graze against his fingers before he grasps it like a sheet of glass, fragile and breakable if he held it any harder.

Gingerly, he folds and pats at his nose with a mumbled grunt, of maybe, thanks, under his breath.

For a moment, Aomine watches him and wonders what kind of kid could take heavy, metal cans to the face and not even flinch—Aomine couldn’t imagine. There’s a bunch of kids on this block who couldn’t take a single punch to the gut without crying.

Aomine shakes the thought away and bends down to collect the scattered food. There are cans, a lot of them, too much for one boy to eat, and he’s skinny on top of that, so what if—

“Hey, you didn’t steal anything, right?” he begins to ask and then sees a flash of metal tucked away under the flaps of the boy’s jacket— two tags.

D/4.

Oh, Aomine stares.  _That’s why._

“Thanks,” the boy says abruptly and shoves Aomine’s hand aside with a rough wave; he clicks his tongue and grabs for the last metal can next to his feet.

There’s something eerie in his movements, something odd in the way he’s tosses things recklessly into the bag, occasionally missing, and then staggers to his feet, unbalanced and weary.

Aomine watches him go, pitter-pattering down the alley with an odd tempo and rhythm in his steps.

—

 _Stay safe,_  his dad tells him and grabs him by his shoulders after giving him a canvas knapsack filled with many small paper bags.  _Things have been getting worse._

Aomine nods with a cheerful smile because this is the world they live in and where he’s grown up. It’s second-nature to know that no where is safe, that there are always dead bodies and stripped women in the alleys, and that anyone, even a small child, has a small revolver and knife stashed behind their belt.

It’s once a week when he does these morning rounds; it’s not exactly safe per se or even sane for someone to have a nine year old running out with a huge bag on his back, but he’s one of the few that the townspeople won’t touch, children being easily ignored and all that.

He remembers every dip and turn in the neighborhood and every detail of every twilight that’s subscribed to their care, from the places they live to the areas they most frequent.

“The weekly stuff, sir,” Aomine says, small hands clenched around the rolled paper bag and he passes it off to a man in the shadows, whose fingers are bandaged up and some of them missing. “If you need anything, I’ll let dad know.”

“I’m all right, thanks for worryin’, Daiki,” he says and with the same hand, places it on Aomine’s head and ruffles his hair. The man smiles a frail smile, the scar on his face stretches with it. “Nothin’ ain’t gonna take me down.”

Aomine receives the crinkled notes of fifties and neatly folds it in half; he puts it in his pocket, right where his swiss knife is.

“I hope not, sir.”

—

Every week on the radio, he listens to the faint buzz of news.

More bodies found in the streets of Tokyo; twilights and anti’s alike being lynched twice a month.

 _It’s getting worse_ , his dad had warned him and Aomine stares out from the small room he sleeps in, listening to the radio announcing the latest victim killed in gunfire, a man with a scar on his face and three fingers missing on his right hand.

—

Sunday morning, a man in combat boots is dragging dirt and bits of grass onto the tatami mats of their living room floor.

He’s sitting rigidly on the blue cushion despite his dad offering a small glass of scotch.

“Riots have escalated, so starting from today, we’ll patrol the streets around this area. Under the governer’s orders, we’ll have two of our men stay guard here every night; curfew’s at eight.”

“I understand,” Dad says and Aomine loses interest in the topic completely and returns to the books he has splayed on the ground in front of him. He fiddles with his blunt pencil, eyes roving over the pages of his history book.

Doodles and scrawls of chains and dog tags have filled up every empty space of the book; he’s not the greatest artist, knows how to draw stick figures at best, but he’s remarkably good at remembering things, especially of the D/4 tags burned like a photo in his mind.

Ka—-  
Birth 8/02  
Blood Type A  
—— Mercenary

Aomine racks his brain a little further, there are gaps in his memory since he wasn’t able to see the letters clearly.

It’s not uncommon to have twilights here in this town, about one of five people has chains looped around their neck, loitering in the muck of the alleys, being kicked and spat on.

It was the first time though, for him to see a twilight his age, looking about nine, or maybe a bit younger—since his arms were so thin, stature so small.

But what surprised Aomine was the rank already inscribed on his otherwise  _should-be-blank_  tag.

Fifteen is the default age in which a twilight’s strength and abilities are tested. Any blank tags older than that are considered strays, any marked tags younger than that means—Aomine doesn’t know.

“We’re telling all the folks with kids not to let them run too far into the city; violence is breaking out even in the daytime,” the mercenary continues to say, then he smooths a crumpled map on the low oak table and explains the protected areas and patrol routes.

Aomine takes a glance outside through the sliding doors, and watches the troops line up behind a grove of bamboo. Twelve, he counts, big men of varying sizes, multitude of races, dressed up in dirtied canvas pants of a European camo pattern.

“Yes, we’ll let him know.” Dad says this and spares a glance at Aomine; he pretends not to notice it. “And as for your troops, keep a close watch on your tagged boy.”

Then, standing at the end of the line, Aomine sees him, tiny with an over-sized rifle propped over his shoulder and a long sword strapped to his waist.

Again, there is the lack of expression in his eyes, but there’s a different bruise, layered atop the same bruise on his face from a few days ago.

“Duly noted.”

—

Aomine tears through a well-worn book, brittle pages creasing under his flippant handling. He skims over it,  listening idly to the orders being yelled out from the troop leader.

“ _You_  start on the east—“

The breeze sweeps through the small field and rattles the leaves above him.

_During the war between West and East in 1908, use of physical enhancement drug, “celebre” was pioneered by the western alliance–_

Flip.

_–celebre enhanced physical strength and reflexes of soldiers and were used during battle–_

Flip.

_Named twilights, they are descendants of celebre users and are observed to suffer genetic after-effects and mental and physical deficiencies–_

Aomine takes a glance to the side; the mercenaries are splitting into pairs, signaling to each other with specific gestures. The kid is lagging behind, clutching onto his sword and walking off in a vague direction before he’s yanked back by the collar.

_Twilights usually have a shorter lifespan, but toxicity of celebre and level of strength depend on individual differences._

“Fucking brat.”

After enduring a rough slap to the head, the boy reaches out his hands, and a small tablet drops into his open palms.

—

Bruises.

A faded boot imprint peeking from under the collar of his black sweater, a small scrape near his elbows where his sleeves end, and a purple swell over his right eye, barely visible under his red hair.

Aomine watches one of the mercenaries clap a rough hand on the twilight’s back and shove him forward. He nearly trips over his untied boots and holds his sword closer to his chest once he regains balance. The kid’s teeth clench into a growl, and eyes crease into a glare, but he says nothing.

“It’ll listen to anything ye say, but if it acts up, a kick or two will set it back right,” the man says with a sneering grin and Aomine tightens the grip on his bag a little more.

“Yer lucky we let ye dad continue on with his business. Get back ‘ere by curfew; wouldn’t want yer head blown right off.”

“Yes, sir,” Aomine murmurs dryly as the mercenary leaves them alone at the gate of his house. He casts a quick glance at the twilight. “So…”

There’s a lack of reply as the twilight glares toward the direction the mercenary walked off. Up close, he looks fragile, cheeks hollowed out and skin littered with discoloration of unhealed bruises, but the ferocity in his eyes remind him of blood-lust and it sends a shiver down Aomine’s neck.

“I’m going to cut that fucking fatso,” the twilight growls, and Aomine shrinks back, almost. The rock Aomine trips on grabs the twilight’s attention and he turns to Aomine, glaring somewhere up, above his head. “ _What?_  You have a problem?”

“Uh—no, nothing.” Aomine mumbles quickly, wondering at the glare the twilight is giving him—well, not him but a few feet above his head.

The twilight blinks after he levels his gaze, a flash of confusion flickers across his face.

Aomine shakes away the nervous tingle in his spine and beams, stretching an arm out for a proper handshake.”Hey, nice to meet you. I’m Aomine–“

“I know,” he cuts in, ignoring Aomine’s outstretched hand. The twilight turns around, crossing his arms, the ridiculous rifle on his back sways with him. “You’re the kid we’re guarding, yeah? And if you want thanks for the other day, I’m not giving it to you.”

Aomine feels both his arm and patience breaking as the twilight scoffs to the side.

“I don’t need some fucking pity from a girl, so—“

Aomine sputters to a halt, his blood boiling. “… _a girl–?”_

The grin that stretches on the twilight’s lips infuriates him; it’s cheeky and condescending, he wants to punch it off his face. “You needed daddy to send you off with someone ‘cus you’re too scared to go by yourself, huh—“

Aomine grabs him by the scruff of his shirt; the metal tags clink like a warning for  _danger_  but he ignores it, “You’re kinda an asshole to some guy you barely met; and for the record, I’m  _not_  a little girl, I don’t need you—“

“You’re—” The twilight starts, confusion softening the hardness in his eyes. “You’re…not a girl.”

Aomine scowls, “ _Obviously_. What the fuck. Are you fucking blind–?”

Aomine takes a closer look, at those deep red eyes staring at him—not at him but straight through him, seeing him but not really, and—the twilight bites down his lips, face reddening at the mistake he’s made.

“Er, y…eah.”

 _Oh, he /is/ blind_. Aomine feels his cheeks heating at that.

Then he lets go.

—

 _I’m Aomine Daiki, but you can call me Daiki,_  he says and this time he makes sure to fit his hand into his. The grip is hard, his palms are rough, and the twilight stares down at it, confused.

 _Kagami,_  he says a little unsure.

 _Kagami…what?_  Aomine presses on, but Kagami releases his hand and says nothing more.

Even when Aomine peeked at his tags, there was nothing there that would complete his name.

—

 _They’re monsters, be careful,_  mom had told him, disdain dragging the edges of her frown.

 _Remember the three principles,_  dad reminded his mom just as Aomine tied his shoes.  _They can’t hurt him because—_

Aomine  _knows_ ; he’s read it a million times.

_1. Twilights must not intentionally hurt humans. Destroying the overall balance by disregarding this rule is forbidden._

_2\.  Twilights must obey orders directed to them by humans. However, orders that conflict with article one are exceptions._

_3. If the situation does not conflict with articles one and two, a Twilight must defend oneself._

He can imagine mom crossing her arms and looking at dad distrustfully.  _Still, don’t be overconfident._

—

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Aomine says to the lady, the sister of the man he delivered to the weeks before. She has worn bags under her eyes and shared the same brittle smile as the deceased twilight.

“Dad’s gonna let you have this as extra but next week…” he trails off, but there’s an understanding in the way she nods and murmurs a quiet  _thank you._

“Your family sells celebre,” Kagami says once Aomine rejoins him at the mouth of the alley. Aomine gives him a glance as he rifles through his bag for the remaining bags.

“Yeah, there’s no real doctor here but we get our stuff from the ones outside the city,” Aomine says, slinging his near empty bag over his shoulders.

He starts walking toward his last destination before pausing a bit, realizing that Kagami had been silent the entire trip until now. “What’s up?”

Kagami ducks his head a little, clicking his tongue, and follows carefully, boots sliding close against the ground.

“…Nothing.”

—

It becomes a routine.

Once a week, one of the mercenaries shove Kagami toward him.

Aomine delivers celebre and Kagami follows, keeping distance and kicking rocks to the side.

They always walk in stilted silence, save for the countless times Aomine tries to weasel information out of him but ends up rambling about himself instead.

 _Are you listening?_ Aomine would have to reaffirm every so often, and he only gets a grunt and the sound of a stone hitting a wall as a reply.

—

“Why do you carry a sword when you have a gun?” Aomine chances to ask, dribbling a small ball against the ground in a steady rhythm.

It’s Kagami’s turn to patrol the west side of town today, bound to his duty once the order was given, but it doesn’t stop Aomine from tagging along.

“It’s easier,” Kagami simply answers and then walks into a pole for the sixth time that afternoon. “—fuck, can you  _stop_  making noise with that—” He swings a hand toward the ball in Aomine’s hand. “—that  _thing_  you have?”

Oh,  _finally_  a normal reaction.

“Sorry, sorry,” Aomine laughs despite himself and grabs Kagami’s wrist as he rubs his bruised nose with the back of his hand. “Here, I’ll help you.”

Kagami yanks his hand out from his grip. “I don’t need help.” As if proving himself, Kagami clicks his tongue and walks past him, shuffling his feet to test for dips in the road he couldn’t see.

It’s not unheard of but the concept that a blind person could walk without a stick was something Aomine didn’t have too much of a trouble grasping.

It sort of has to do with the click of his tongue and echolocation, something that bats do, but Aomine, for the life of him, forgets that. While there are the empty stares and confident strides into obstacles (sometimes,) Kagami doesn’t act like he’s blind and maybe that’s why Aomine sometimes forgets, tells him to  _look over there_  at something he can’t see.

“I’m on duty, don’t bother me,” Kagami growls, turning his head just slightly to bear his teeth. It’s a warning; Kagami hates him being close.

“Okay, okay,” Aomine sighs after a while, settling to spin the ball on the tip of his finger instead.

—

Aomine can recall everything about a twilight that there is from photographic memory and the crinkled pages of his books. Twilights are plagued with a compensation, physical and mental deficiencies, prejudice, a short life-span, inhumane strength, their reliance on celebre.

They call them monsters, seen less and lower than humans, with the only leash on their power being a bottle of medicine, upper and downer.

“Twilights are our friends,” dad says to him as Aomine pulls out the wads of dirty bills he had collected after his run. But in actuality, Aomine knows that  _friend_  is just another word for  _business_.

 _You don’t care about them do you?_  Aomine thinks and watches dad unfold the bills and mutter the profits and numbers to himself. To the corner of the storage room, there are boxes upon boxes of celebre, less effective but bought for cheaper. Dad had struck a deal with a doctor nearby some many months ago, he’ll purchase all the failed celebre samples—from the weak to potently strong–and sell them at the price as if it was normal.

 _Not our problem,_ Aomine absently thinks as he sits on one of the cardboard boxes with a comic propped in his lap. If a twilight consumes a faulty celebre, they’ll be quickly put down by the garrisons stationed in town.

Worth akin to a stray cat, no one would miss them and their measly government funding would funnel straight into the Aomine’s bank according to contract.

There’s no such thing as kindness in this fucked up world of theirs.

—

“Then the guy goes  _ba-tang!_  His body is building with power, and then with a curled fist, he punches Yuso across the jaw. He flies back into a wall, and  _crash_ —” Aomine claps his hands for added sound effects as he continues reading; he’s been at it for an hour, sitting near the gate of the Aomine house where Kagami is guarding, back turned away from him.

Kagami pretends he isn’t listening but he actually is.

It’s taken a week for Aomine to understand his subtle body language—the slight rigidness in his shoulders when the hero is about to burst into the abandoned warehouse, the light shuffling of his feet when the hero is cornered with no way out, and then the gentle scoff when the hero delivers his cheesiest line at the end.

“Did you like it?” Aomine asks, throat dry. He coughs after he takes a long drink from his canteen of water. Kagami doesn’t say anything, just tilts his head a little, and continues to ignore him.

Aomine laughs a little to himself and stands up from the grassy patch he was sitting on.

“I’ll bring something else for you then.”

—

 _Withdrawals_ , Aomine has only seen it once and that was during his delivery run.

He had fought against the crowd of curious people, breaking through the half-moon surrounding a group of soldiers and a twilight, one that he knew.

The twilight had began to shake and the soldiers had a relentless grip on his arm despite his thrashing.

 _Where’s his upper?_  one of them yelled as another furiously dug through his pockets for the bottle of medicine.  _Shit, make him eat it, it’ll get worse if he doesn’t—_

The twilight never made it.

Shot five times in the head after he lunged at another soldier after being administered two tablets.  _Fucking twilight overdosed till it became invalid—_  the man growled and kicked the corpse off him. He smeared the blood off his cheek and turned his head to spit at the body.

Aomine didn’t flinch as he watched deep red ooze out from the twilight's skull.

This is normal.

This is just business.

—

Three months passed, and there’s still a lot of things that Aomine would like to know about Kagami.

Though, what he does know is that Kagami is half-foreign, swears in English, a big (but picky) eater, and prideful with a nasty temper especially when it comes to admitting his ignorance. He’s part of the mercenary troop that had been stationed there months prior; he always shows up with new injuries just under his over-sized clothes; he also jumps at the sound of dogs and would have slaughtered one if Aomine hadn’t stopped him.

Kagami reads like an easy book; but he’s also wrapped up in enigma, clamming up when Aomine asks about his dad, or his mom, any siblings, his past.

Also, another point.

Kagami always keeps his sword with him, but Aomine has never seen him kill and he’s not so sure if he ever wants to.

—

Blood, blood on his hands.

A lifeless bird in his palms, neck loose and hanging off the hinge of torn feathers, the soft down is matted together with dirt and mud. Kagami hasn’t moved, but stares blankly at the bird in his hands, cradling it softly, thumb running down its wing.

“I can’t believe they’d do this,” Aomine says, out of breath from chasing down other kids and pelting them with rocks, branches, insults, his fists. He glances at the bird, neck snapped in half and cut open with a pocket knife. “That’s really messed up.”

Kagami says nothing; his head is ducked as he sits on his haunches, fingers gently gliding down the feathers, combing away the bits of dirt stuck in between.

“Uhm…do you want to bury it?” Aomine chances to ask, hesitant as he approaches him. “There’s a small—“

“They called me a monster, once,” Kagami murmurs, and then looks up and smiles.

It’s bitter.

It’s strange, it's a portrait of a boy who’s known death too well but experiencing grief all over again.

“I wonder who the real monsters are…”

—

Another thing: Kagami has a heart of gold.

—

They bury it in the soft dirt near the creek just outside of town. Aomine doesn’t know much about burials aside from digging a hole and tossing a body in, but he finds sticks and flowers, constructs a small fence around the site as a memorial.

“You put a flower here, kind of like a peace offering, I think,” Aomine says passing off one of the small daisies he’s found.

Kagami accepts it without a word; usually he’d scowl, but now his expression is smoothed down, bangs veiling his eyes, it’s unreadable. The silence is odd as he drops the flower atop the mound and lets his fingers linger over the dirt.

There’s nothing more Aomine can say and even if he has something to say, Kagami has probably already heard it all.

—

Fifth month; it’s the first time Kagami’s laid a hand on him.

He grabs him by the collar his shirt and slams him hard against the garden wall, breath in his face and snarling like a wounded animal.

“Give them to me—” he hisses, dark red bangs tossed to the side, and Aomine can see that the underside of his eyes are red and swollen. Kagami’s hold is pressing against Aomine’s neck, crushing at the cartilage in his throat. ”Just two bottles—“

There’s a  _please, please_  sitting on the edge of Kagami’s tongue that he swallows, Aomine’s sure of it, because it’s in the tight creases in Kagami’s mouth, the trembling fingers curled in his loose cotton shirt, and the way he’s  _looking_  at Aomine, eyes wide.

Terrified, angry, bright, red eyes.

Aomine blinks, furiously, at the skate of breath against his chin, the ragged edge in Kagami’s voice, the misplaced anger.

And he gets it without being told; he can see imprints of a hand against Kagami’s jaw, dark purple blossoming under his dirtied white shirt, and cigarette burns, bright pink and orange circles peppering along his thin neck.

He can barely speak, swallow. “K…agami—”

“You have them,  _right_?” he yells and the hold is choking. “Just give some to me, your dad won’t even notice—“

“Kagami, I—” Aomine shudders, closing his eyes, remembering the twilight with five bullets in his head—and then he sees a red headed boy with holes in his body, then to the side, drowning in a pool of blood, a spilled orange bottle of  _faulty—_

It hurts, his vision is turning black; he grasps at Kagami’s wrists, fingernails clawing at him to  _let go._

“I’m  _not_  giving you those,” Aomine manages to shout and somehow, he shoves Kagami back, hard at the shoulder. Kagami stumbles and his metal tags clink.

Aomine’s lungs are on fire but he stops breathing and he knows Kagami has too.

“I,” Aomine murmurs, but then stops short when Kagami takes a small step back, hands shaking, cold sweat on his skin. He grasps at the hair on his head, drawing in a deep breath through his clenched teeth. “I can’t.”

 _I know, I know_ , Kagami mouths, more to himself and lets his hands fall down to his side. When he looks up, Aomine sees the lines softening in his face under the dim morning sun, then he nods, eyes closing, resignation.

Kagami turns away, and reality resounds with each soft jingle of his tags in every careful step he takes.

How could Aomine have forgotten?

Nothing between them has changed.

—

(It’s like walking on fine ice to get to the other side.

Aomine had toed at it for months, subconsciously thinking that if there was a way to cross it, it’d be through time and conversation, laughs and companionship—gently, carefully, treading on glass.

But now, Kagami had been the first to completely step over, and something underneath has broke, and the cold reality swallows him, swallowed them.

They are the guarded and the guard, the normal and the twilight.

A boy and a monster.

Nothing can ever change.)


End file.
